Becky Mallaband

I am a lecturer in Product Design and have been based at Aston University, in the Mechanical Engineering and Design department since December 2015, having previously been a Research Associate and Lecturer in the Loughborough Design School. My area of expertise is User Centred Design, and the majority of my research thus far has been conducted within the energy domain.

My research interest is twofold, firstly, investigating challenges from a functionality matching approach. Understanding the need for not only behaviour change, but also for new technology to match and benefit the current habits and behaviours of users. This requires an in-depth understanding of how to research people, but also to work across disciplines, often translating information between engineers, users and stakeholders.

The second area of research development is within this discipline gap, where there is a unique opportunity to develop best practice and tools for cross-disciplinary work within this sociotechnical area, particularly within the energy demand domain.

My background enables me to represent the needs of people in all types of research. This might mean translating technical information so that it is easier for users to understand or gathering and analysing information from users which can then be used within the design of products or systems.